


Meliboea

by TrisB



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Community: where_no_woman, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:57:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrisB/pseuds/TrisB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grief was gradual and instead of sitting on her back and slowly sliding off, it became part of her. Or, like a woman harrowed by the huntings of the gods in ancient stories, she became it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meliboea

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "don't pin me down."
> 
> Titled for [the surviving daughter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloris#Chloris_.28Meliboea.29) of Niobe. Winona's dog is named after [another](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Bark).

There was never a particular day when Winona started feeling okay, never a moment when she was able to look at herself from outside and think, _This far, yes, but no further_. Grief was gradual and instead of sitting on her back and slowly sliding off, it became part of her. Or, like a woman harrowed by the huntings of the gods in ancient stories, she became it. Starfleet Command certainly held her in the awe befitting a bereaved wife-become-stone — wretched — or a Gorgon, whose lingering wrathful gaze might destroy any of their missives or messengers, and so they liked to pretend she herself was a myth.

Her sons knew she was real, though; watched their mother and their third parent, tragedy, melt into each other and still didn't give a shit, because she was their mom and they needed: new shoes, permission slips signed, bedtime stories, another ride to practice. The dog, which she'd adopted to keep Jim from crying at night, adopted her instead, so now Jim still cried and was jealous of Winona to boot, but Seymour the wirehaired mutt nipped at her toes to wake her up, jumped in ecstasy whenever he saw her with leash in hand, and threw up in her bed. The frank demands of every day and every yet-living love assured Winona she was no cautionary tale, no bittersweet story descending into **THE END**. Like her grief, she couldn't help but keep going.

George was at rest in the sky like a sacrificed star, his legacy unchanging in the dark distance. The light of his loss illuminated Winona's new skin, her yearning laurel branches, her fledgling feathers born of weak wax wings. _Okay_ wasn't a word that held much value anymore, not against her kids and her dog and her irritated correspondence with work. All she transformed for, all she hoped to become, was the spirit of movement, the idea — though meaningless in outer space — _Up_.


End file.
